


Fall apart, Iron Heart

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Alea iacta est [12]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Gen, Pre-Canon, Racism, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 02:16:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7080640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daena the Defiant, they call her, but it is no longer true. Now, she is only Daena the Disappointed.</p>
<p>"Had you been a son," she spits at the pale little thing in the cradle, "Aegon would have divorced that limpid bitch he's married to, and once Baelor starves himself to death, Aegon could have taken me as his wife. Had you been a son, your father would have had a real heir."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall apart, Iron Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Ask and ye shall receive: Daemon Blackfyre, born Daenaera.

**i.**   


Daena the Defiant, they call her, but it is no longer true. Now, she is only Daena the Disappointed.

"Had you been a son," she spits at the pale little thing in the cradle, "Aegon would have divorced that limpid bitch he's married to, and once Baelor starves himself to death, Aegon could have taken me as his wife. Had you been a son, your father would have had a  _real_ heir."

Looking out the barred window, Daena can see Naerys simpering her way up the path with weak-willed Aemon at her elbow, her crook-backed son just ahead of her. How disgusting it is, to see that festering sore of a man walk about and be called  _Prince_ , when Daena has been denied the son she and Aegon deserve!

"Tell the bitch I will not see her," she calls over her shoulder to Elaena, all ears and skinny neck with that short-shorn hair of hers, and to Rhaena she says only "watch the brat."

She will have nothing of her fucking  _daughter,_ not when the stupid, cockless child has proven a further shackle instead of the salvation she wanted.

**ii.**   


It is Rhaena that names the child, the poor, pitiful child who is unwanted by mother and father alike.

"We shall have a Daenaera," she says, cradling the babe against her shoulder, "and you will be just as well loved as the woman whose name you bear."

Daena thinks no one knows who the father of her babe is, but Rhaena knows. Rhaena always knows, and she suspects that Naerys knows, too, and if Naerys knows, Aemon knows, and beyond Aemon, Uncle surely knows, and Elaena too, even if she will never admit it.

Rhaena wonders if Baelor, lost in his prayers, is even truly aware that Daena has shamed herself and them all. Part of her hopes not, for it would be a kindness to spare him this before he fasts himself to death.

Aegon does not want his daughter, though, and it pains Naerys and Aemon both to even hear the child cry. Daena is Daena, unkind and unthinking in her unkindness, and Elaena is a thousand miles away except when asked to help. Baelor is ashamed, Uncle enraged, and so it falls to Rhaena, as it always does, to provide succour.

"My lady mother would have been appalled by how my sister treats you," she whispers, setting the fragile little thing down on her own bed and beginning to unwrap it from its swaddling. Daena, who can be cruel, insists on wrapping the babe in black silk, but Rhaena has asked for soft linens in pretty colours as replacement. The maids like Rhaena best, because she is the quietest of the Maidens and keeps best to their confines, and so they never fail her in her rare requests.

And perhaps they, too, pity the child for having Daena as a mother.

The babe is a pretty little thing, with hints of Daena's strong beauty showing already in the wide, bright eyes of dusk-purple and the curls of silvery-gold hair dusting her pale scalp. She looks healthier wrapped in lemoncake yellow and sky blue than she did in black, and coos happily when Rhaena lifts her once more to her shoulder, rocking her gently while they wait for the wetnurse.

"Your mama is a bitch," she whispers, blushing to use such a filthy word, "and she is not capable of loving anyone, not since our lord father and Daeron died. But I will love you, little one. I will always love you."

 **iii**.  


Naerys cannot deny that she is achingly,  _painfully_ jealous of the beautiful little girl who toddles about the Maidenvault, holding Rhaena and Elaena's fingers, but it would be terrible of her to say so, and ungrateful for what blessings she has been given.

Oh, she has Daeron, newly twenty years old and the kindest, wisest young man in all of Westeros, and she has Daenerys, so tiny and delicate and  _perfect._ She has her lord father's love, and Aemon's, and she has Daeron's beautiful, beautiful sons, Baelor who is so like Mariah and Aerys who reminds Naerys of her uncle Aegon, even in his cradle as he yet is. 

But still - Daenaera Waters is such a fierce,  _strong_ little thing that Naerys cannot but be jealous. She knows that there is nothing for it, that with her own frail health and Aegon's unkindness her babes were never destined to be warriors, but it rankles that Daenaera stands in such direct contrast to her Daenerys, both Aegon's daughters but otherwise polar opposites.

"Daena still will not see me?" she asks, wondering just how much it had taken for her lord father to force Daena to keep from pressing to have her bastard legitimised, all without outright stating that the girl is Aegon's.

Aegon has so many bastards at this stage that Naerys has lost track, and wishes she could hate him for it. Instead, she suffers it with the same forbearance she has shown to all aspects of her marriage, and wishes she could convince Aemon to quiet his rage the same way.

Rhaena's face pinks in embarrassment - she is near a septa now, Naerys thinks, and envies her even as she pities her cousin for being denied the chance to be a mother without shaming herself, as Daena has - and Naerys sighs. 

"Daena," she calls, raising her voice as she so rarely does, for once uncaring that it will upset the children. Baelor only smiles at her from his place on the hearthrug, consumed mostly with his little wooden blocks, and Daenerys continues to dance her dolly up and down on her pillow, but Daenaera turns to look at her with eyes so sharp they seem ancient, and Naerys only just manages to ignore her niece. "I know you can hear me, cousin. Face me, and stop playing the coward you so often accuse me of being."

Daena does not appear at the top of the stairs, but there is a crash from just beyond them, which Naerys takes as acknowledgement. 

"Had I my way," she calls, taking comfort in Aemon's presence behind her chair, "I would have long ago given up my place at Aegon's table, in his household, but I do not have that choice. Do not blame me for having the life you wish - not that you would wish for it, if you knew the truth of Aegon's person."

It is dangerous to slander Aegon so, with their father on his deathbed and the crown just beyond the reach of Aegon's fingertips, but Daena of all people knows what it is to feel the sharp edge of Aegon's carelessness, surely?

"Your daughter will have a safer life as a Waters than as a Targaryen," Naerys calls, rising carefully to her feet, holding out a hand to little Baelor as Aemon lifts Daenerys into his arms without needing to be asked. "Be thankful for that, Daena. I would be, in your position."

**iv.**   


Daenaera hates her family.

She was raised to hate Daeron, who is weak and useless and not a good enough man to sit the throne, but he is her father's sole trueborn son, and so he will have the crown, even though he is not fit to wear it. Her father will not disinherit him, of course he will not, because if Daeron is removed there is only his filthy sons, half-Dornish and half animals every one of them, or Aegor, whose slut mother couldn't keep her legs shut for even a moment after the King looked her way.

The only one Daenaera can even slightly tolerate is Daenerys, and only then because she pities her sister for the fate that awaits her - marriage to a Martell, prince of beasts, and surely death in the far-burning sands of Dorne, just as Daenaera's uncle Daeron died there.

Her mother is a cold woman, by turns cruel and instructive, and Daenaera has heard it whispered that she has inherited her mother's beauty without any of her charm. Daenaera likes that, a little, likes the idea of being beautiful enough to tempt men but untouchable by any of them.

Her father would surely kill any man who touched her. 

Her fellow bastards, though, are a contemptible lot. Aegor seeks her out at every opportunity, brutishly strong already at just one-and-ten, brutishly stupid, too, but easily led. His mother is a rank bitch, bitter against Daenaera's mother, against Missy Blackwood, against her sister Beth and against little Jeyne and against fair Serenei, who of all the King's lovers Daenaera's mother hates most of all, but Aegor wants power and seeks it through her, and the odd shows of affection given her by their father.

They are few and far between, but still more than that received by any of their siblings, trueborn or base.

Daenaera hates her father, too, truth be told. She cannot say that aloud, dares not, but it is true. He ought to have set aside that stupid little wench he was wed to as a boy so he could wed her mother, the sort of Queen Westeros ought to have, the sort of Queen who could have kept him to a single bed and kept him from turning into a fat, pox-ridden old fool.

He ought to be more! He is a  _King,_ the  _only_ King, and yet he is still a fool, just as everyone else in this accursed city seems to be a fool, bewitched by whatever woman holds the King's cock, or by the Dornish bitch who holds Daeron's withered manhood in her dark hand. Foreign usurpers in a court that ought to belong to Daenaera's mother, and to Daenaera after her!

Daenaera hates her family, and their hangers on, and thinks that someday, she might lose her mind at how  _foolish_ they all are.

**v.**   


"I am glad," Daenerys confides to Baelor and Aerys, "that she did not come."

Daenaera is her sister, and it is uncharitable of Daenerys to dislike her so - her mother would have disapproved, gods rest her - but she cannot help it. Baelor and Aerys are her nephews, not her brothers, and yet she feels closer to them than ever she has to Daenaera, who has made no secret of her loathing of all her kin.

Baelor chews on his lip, reluctant to comment either way for fear of being overheard and accused of being either too Dornish or too weak in his sentiment - one inherited from his mother, the other from his father, if the whispering masses are to be believed - but Aerys only huffs a laugh and tugs at the collar of his fine tunic.

"Fuck her," he says, sharp and unlike himself. Dany supposes that it is to be expected - Aerys and Rhaegel take the worst of Daenaera's hatred, for being bookish and soft, for being what she considers to be unworthy of the throne - but it still shocks her, because while Aerys can be sharp, or even sometimes unkind, he is never uncouth. "She is undeserving of even this much consideration."

Shiera had said much the same, when she bid Dany farewell within the Red Keep itself. Mariah had decided that Shiera, only ten years old now, is too young to come to the docks, and while Dany regrets that she will not get to wish her favourite sister a final farewell, she understands it, too.

After all, Daenaera hates Dany and Shiera being close almost as much as she hates them simply for existing - it would surely only draw her ire to present them both together, on the occasion of Dany's final departure for Sunspear.

"If I may, my lady," Maron says, finished with his goodbyes to Mariah, the sister he hardly knows, "your nephew has the right of it - Mistress Waters cannot do you harm now, and you would do well to put her from your mind."

They likely  _do_ have the right of it, and yet Dany cannot help but fret, even as she stretches up on her toes to press a kiss to Daeron's cheek, even as she embraces Mariah one last time. She knows Daenaera better than most, by necessity of their having been raised in such close quarters, and she knows that underneath the hatred and bitterness burns a flame of ambition so hot it will surely destroy them all.

The first letter she receives after her arrival at Sunspear is from Baelor. He writes to tell her that Daenaera has eloped with Aegor, and Dany laughs herself to half-maddened tears, because surely this will mean hell for their whole family.

**vi.**   


Mariah has more goodsisters than she knows what to do with, and can tolerate only four of them.

Daenerys is her favourite, Daenerys is  _everyone's_ favourite, and Mariah loves her as though they were sisters by blood as well as twice-over by marriage. Daenerys has much of her mother's nature, the kindness and love that made Mariah's first days in King's Landing tolerable as bright in Dany as ever they were in Queen Naerys, but she has a fortitude all her own, doubtless borne of being a child in so unstable and uncomfortable a time as her father's reign, with Daena and her bastard echoing in the Maidenvault, and the Bracken bitches and Missy and Lady Lys fluttering about court like carrion crows, waiting for Naerys and Daeron to die.

Her other goodsisters, well.  _Well._ Gwynesse and Mya aren't so bad, she supposes, of an age with Rhaegel and Maekar and without their mother's pride or their full-brother's oddness, and even after the Fat King's foolish last act, they took no graces, made no claim to titles not theirs.

Little Shiera, hand-in-hand with Daenerys despite the difference in their ages, had asked for a crown, but she had been a tiny little thing at the time, and under Mariah's own care. It had been a simple thing to explain to Shiera why she could not be a princess, and Seastar has never raised the issue since, not that Mariah has heard.

The others she hardly knows, away from court as they are, but there is one who is always present, festering like a sore on the edge of court, drawing her mother's supporters to her along with all those who would see Mariah and her boys brought low.

 _Daenaera._

Daenaera, who had Aegon's filthy ear more than anyone else in living memory, who convinced her father to give Blackfyre to the Bracken bastard and then convinced her father to allow her marriage to her half-brother, so that their new House Blackfyre might begin. Mariah always loathed Daenaera, thinking her a vicious, proud little child, too much like her self-centred, self-satisfied bitch of a mother to ever do well, and she wishes Daeron had listened to her, listened and kept Daenaera away from Daena.

Daena always loathed Mariah in return, of course, loathed all things and all people Dornish because of the fate of the Young Dragon, and because she hated all things not arranged to suit her. She fled to Driftmark in a fury upon Aegon's death, leaving Daenaera alone at court, and Mariah cannot help but wonder just how calculated that was - Daena never loved her daughter, but she had seen the advantages of Aegon's eventual fondness for the girl, and had used that. 

Daenaera's first son is born the very same day as Baelor and Jena's, though, a child of perfect silver-gold curls and violet eyes and silver-pale skin. Baelor and Jena's son has enough of Baelor in him to be visibly other than Valyrian, with the soft brown of his hair and the gold undertone of his skin, with his mother's blue eyes, and Mariah's heart swells with pride to see Daeron sitting the Iron Throne in his father's crown, with his grandson balanced on his knee.

Daenaera haunts the fringes of court with her barely wanted brother-husband, her wailing babe drowning out Valarr's good-natured gurgling, and Mariah is sure that Daemon Blackyfyre will be the death of them all.

**vii.**   


Shiera spends her time almost equally with her three favourite people, partly because it allows her to escape the person who scares her most.

Time spent with Dany in the Water Gardens is never enough, and time spent with Baelor on Dragonstone is only ever barely enough, but time spent with Daeron at King's Landing is always precisely enough. 

If she could have Daeron and King's Landing without Daenaera and Aegor, then perhaps she would like it better, but she cannot, and so she must endure their presence so she might have time with Daeron and Mariah.

Daenaera has been clamouring for Aegor to be given a seat on the small council, or significant holdings of his own ( _Harrenhal,_ she has been known to ask for, half in jape, surely just baiting Daeron. No one could possibly wish that cursed ruin on their sons and daughters, surely? Shiera has always thought her oldest sister mad, but this proves it), and Daeron has thus far managed to stave off her demands, matched always with Aegor's vicious tantrums - usually on the practice yard, against Maekar.

Maekar is Aegor's match in strength, or near as makes no difference, and he is faster, too. Shiera holds Maekar a little in awe, almost frightened of her four princely nephews because of their strength against the burdens of their crowns, but she is never truly scared of Maekar save when he faces Aegor on the yard, his mace and shield like the Warrior's own when Aegor calls Mariah a  _Dornish dog._

Shiera's own mother is the subject of such calumny that she would have been protective of Mariah even without the kindness Mariah and Daeron showed her as a little girl, but her disgust at Aegor's behaviour is nothing against Maekar's terrible rage.

Sometimes, she wishes Maekar's mace would break through Aegor's tourney shield and then through his smug, brutal face, because Shiera is sure that the world would be a kinder place without Aegor in it.

Daenaera would likely call for Maekar's head, though, would stir up such a fury that her friends and lick-arses would be drawn in and would turn on Maekar, too. Shiera does not know what would happen then, but she fears that Daenaera would manage to bring it all to war, and that is the last thing any of them want.

If Daenaera were a man, she would challenge for Daeron's crown in her own right. Shiera heard her slur it into her wine one night, after a long feast, when there were none but Daenaera and her cronies left in the great hall. No one ever notices Shiera, she makes certain of it, and because of that she hears all sorts of things.

 _Were I a man,_ Daenaera had said, slumped over a golden cup and full up with golden wine,  _I should be King in that wretch's place._

Daenaera as Queen is nothing Shiera ever wishes to see, and so she only wishes a very small bit that Maekar could kill Aegor.

**viii.**   


"Do you know," Dyanna says, tightening the narrow leather strap holding Maekar's vambrace to his forearm. The leather is deep purple, the steel enamelled in black that shines sickly red, and Dyanna wishes more than anything that she had never commissioned it for him to celebrate Aerion's birth. "Do you know, husband, that this might all have been avoided?"

"How so, wife?" Maekar asks, his voice unusually soft. He has a reputation for being hard, her husband, but Dyanna knows him better than anyone, knows him well enough to love him to his very bones, and understands that his hardness is not cruelty, as so many suppose. "Should my grandmother have given orders to smother Daenaera and Aegor in their cradles, that this hell might not have come to pass?"

"I likely would have, in her position," Dyanna says tartly, and then she stretches up on her toes to press her face to Maekar's ever-warm neck. He is not in full armour, not when this is all just display and ceremony, a show for the city as they depart to war, and so his throat is bare, and she can hide there. "But that is not what I meant, love, and you know it."

Maekar's whole body shifts when he sighs, and his arms come up to hold her. It is uncomfortable, with his plate in place, but Dyanna does not care. She might lose Maekar because of Daenaera's greed and Aegor's fury, and she will steal every moment she can find with him before she must let him go.

"We will come home," he says, tucking his head down so he can nudge her face up, so he can kiss her. " _I_ will come home, Dyanna. I promise you that I will come home."

"You'd better," she says, faintly aware that her feet have come off the ground, he's holding her so tight. "Or I shall murder Daenaera Waters with my own hands."

"You'd be better served borrowing your brother's sword," Maekar teases, kissing her again. "Or have Ultor use Dawn to hold Aegor off, so that you would have a proper chance to take Daenaera."

Dyanna laughs until her breath catches in her throat, and soon after, Baelor is at their door.

"I must steal him away, sister," he says, Jena at his side with his helm in her hands. Dyanna and Jena have never been close - of her goodsisters, she likes Alys best - but she thinks that this may make friends of them where nothing else has. "The time has come."

Alys and Aelinor will never understand, for Rhaegel and Aerys will never ride to war - well, even if Aerys did, Aelinor would not understand, because their marriage is such a terrible, strange thing - but Jena knows Dyanna's terror, and they clutch tight to one another's hands in the gates of the Red Keep, behind the King and Queen, and Dyanna can see the prayers and fears warring in Jena's sharp blue eyes, just as they battle in her own heart.

"They will come home," she whispers to her goodsister. "Maekar promised, and he has never broken a promise to me."

If Daenaera Waters - Dyanna  _will not_ call them anything but their bastard names, she  _refuses_ \- thinks to make an oathbreaker of Maekar, she will have Dyanna to answer to.

**ix.**   


"I cannot kill them," Daeron says, aching at the impossibility of it all. Mariah's hands work the pains from his back, well practised after so many years together, but the pains in his heart are his own to tend, and he hates them. "They are my brother and sister, Mariah. I cannot be a kinslayer."

"And do you think they would have spared you, had they won?" she asks, working her thumbs into the knot that always gathers underneath the curve of his spine. The release of pressure is painful, horribly so, but the relief that floods in directly afterwards is bliss, and Daeron sinks down into their thick pillows with a sigh.

"I know that they would have murdered every last one of us," he admits, "from me right down to the boys."

Daeron loves his grandsons as much and more as he does his sons, clever Valarr and sweet Daeron and sharp Aerion and new little Matarys, who likes nothing so well as to play with the bright ribbons Mariah still winds through her silvering black hair. The thought of any wishing them harm makes him sick, and he knows that Daenaera would murder them all without a thought, if it meant that she might pass a crown to her own Daemon.

 _Daemon._ Of all the men to honour, she chose  _Daemon!_ Daeron does not remember his grandfather, and is grateful for it, but gods be good, surely she could have imagined a less dastardly legacy for her child!  


The thought of his sons and grandsons, of his gooddaughters, of  _Mariah_ , murdered by his own brother - because Daenaera would shove Aegor forward, and Blackfyre would fall, over and over, until there wasn't a trace of House Targaryen left - is unbearable, and yet he must consider the converse, is forced to imagine himself giving the opposite order.

Can he do it? He is known for being soft, for being weak - Daenaera has screamed herself hoarse to ensure the whole of the Red Keep echoes with demands that he prove himself other than  _weak_ , and even after so many years of mockery for his crooked back and round shoulders, it stings - but he  _must_ be strong now.

His children depend on it. Baelor must have a secure crown to inherit, and Valarr after him. Daeron cannot afford to see their inheritance at risk. 

And that means harsh penalties to those who committed treason.

"She calls you a bastard to everyone who will listen," Mariah says, shifting to sit across his backside so she might rub his back more easily. "She mocks you and derides you, and even without that, she incited the fools of the realm to  _treason,_ Daeron! Under the banner of a man they loathe!"

"But they love her," Daeron sighs, looking back at her as best he can. "What am I to do, Mariah? Even if I kill Daenaera and Aegor, their children yet live - what am I to do?"

Mariah says nothing for a long while, and Daeron waits. It is rare that she falls silent when it is just them, alone, but when she does, she is deep in thought, and it is always worth the wait.

"Speak to your cousin Elaena," she says at last. "Ask her how much it would take to fortify the Maidenvault once more, and to seal up the gaps through which your father's cock found Daena's cunt. If I am right, we may be able to spare the children, and punish the parents."

**x.**   


Elaena thought the Maidenvault long ago left behind, but here she is again, just as she is once every seven days.

Daeron cannot, and Mariah will not, so Elaena has taken this burden on herself. It is a small thing, really, a small price to pay for Daeron not challenging her choosing Michael as a new husband.

There is uproar the moment she is allowed through the doors.

Daemon, Daenaera's eldest boy, howls still for Blackfyre to be returned to him - as though he has any right to the sword which now hangs from Baelor's hip, where it ought to have been for twenty years and more now, a match to Dark Sister on young Valarr's - but it is her twins who worry Elaena most, her twins and her eldest girl. Aegon, Aemon, and Calla.

Calla is too much like Daenaera for comfort, like recently-dead Daena before her, and Elaena knew her sister well enough to have been glad when the Council passed her over for the throne. 

The twins are quiet, though, one with Aegor's dark hair and the other with Daenaera's fair curls. They watch everything from matching eyes of uncanny brightness, pale lilac like Naerys' were, once. Aegon speaks for them both, in a slow, assured voice that sounds wrong coming from a lad of his years, but Aemon never speaks, never at all.

If Daemon dies then Aemon is head of House Blackfyre, and that is something Elaena hopes never to see come to pass. Daemon is all fire, more his namesake than any of them would like, but the twins watch everything, and they  _see_. That is dangerous, in a lad who may challenge for the crown.

"Well then," she shouts over the din, ignoring every question and demand thrown at her in favour of wading to the circle of armchairs by the fire. "Tell me all I have missed."

Confining ten children to the Maidenvault may have seemed cruel, but Elaena understands Daeron and Mariah's thinking - it drives you mad, to be trapped in this tower, and with that madness comes a loose tongue. There isn't a child here who could hide a nefarious scheme from Elaena, save for odd, silent Aemon.

"And your mother?" she asks, once they have exhausted all their plots and tales, and emptied the basket of honey tarts she brought with her. "She is well?"

Aemon glances sharp to Aegon, but it is Calla who speaks, overruling them both.

Perhaps Elaena is wrong. Calla is older than the twins, and so it may be her who takes control if Daemon dies. How funny, to think of Daenaera's children following the Dornish inheritance laws, after Daenaera fought so hard to take the crown from Daeron and his half-Dornish sons.

"She remains locked in her room," Calla says, "with the window so firmly barred she hardly sees the sun, even at noon."

"Still sulking, I see," Elaena says bracingly. "Very well - I shall go up and speak with her. Back in a moment."

Daenaera's room is indeed locked, but it was once Elaena's own, and her key yet works. Daenaera has tried changing the locks of the Maidenvault more than once, but Elaena has always seen to it that they are changed back, because the idea of Daenaera loose on the city would turn even Baelor's dark hair white.

"I hope you're decent, niece," Elaena calls, throwing open the door with as wide a smile as she can muster. It is wider than is perhaps proper, given she is acting as a glorified gaoler, but she cannot help it - it pleases her to see Daenaera's wildness tamed, as Daena's never was.

Oh, Elaena has her bastards, her Jon and Jeyne, but what lay between herself and Alyn was the very opposite of the lust-by-chance that caused Daena to grow big with Aegon's cursed whelp. Daena never had an ounce of sense, and Daenaera has all her mother's reckless selfishness paired with her father's greed, and it has made a deeply unpleasant woman of her.

Perhaps grief has not helped. Elaena thinks that Daenaera loved Aegor, as best she can love anyone, and she has worn black since the day he was executed. She lost one of her girls, razor-tongued Rhaena, named for the only other person Elaena is sure Daenaera ever loved, to the madness of the Maidenvault not two years ago, too, and Elaena had done her best to offer unwanted but much needed comfort then.

"I am a bastard, aunt," Daenaera says, emerging from the shadows and looking so much like Daena that it shocks Elaena. She loved her older sister, for all Daena's faults, and to see Daenaera become more and more her image hurts - Elaena wonders if ever she will stop failing her sisters, and thinks likely not. "Am I ever decent?"

"Daeron sends his regards," Elaena says, taking the chair by Daenaera's dressing table, forcing her niece to sit on the end of the bed. "He wishes you to reconsider his offer once more, even if we all know you'll never agree."

"It is an  _insult-"_

"It will guarantee your children's safety," Elaena points out evenly, thinking of her babes, from the twins right down to Joy. They are adults now, and she would still give up the very clothes on her back if it meant their security - but she has never had Daenaera's misguided pride. "You need only say yes."

Daeron has tried to make Daenaera see sense for years now, and it has never worked. Daenaera insists that her eldest son is rightful King, even though the whole realm now sees them as a wicked sort of jape, especially since Baelor survived that terrible injury at Ashford. If the gods had any intention of taking the crown from Daeron's line, then surely Baelor would have died, but he did not, and so all but the maddest of Aegor and Daenaera's followers have turned from their cause. 

"He offers us  _nothing,_ " Daenaera hisses, "save for  _shame_."

"Oh, come now," Elaena laughs, unable to help herself. "Harrenhal is hardly shameful, and besides - you've never known the meaning of  _shame,_ Daenaera. Do not pretend it now."

"Harrenhal was held by  _witch!"_ Daenaera explodes, surging to her feet to tower above Elaena - she has Aegon's height as well as his hubris, one striking and the other irritating. "Daeron only offers it because he wants to oust her!"

"Likely," Elaena agrees cheerfully, folding her hands and smiling anew. "But it would be a fine keep for your Daemon to hold, don't you think?"

"A fine curse, you mean," Daenaera sulks, subsiding as quickly as she rose. "Granting Harrenhal to my son would doom our House, and Daeron knows it."

"Likely," Elaena agrees, not so cheerful now. "But can you truly blame him, little one, after all the harm you have done?"


End file.
